Evidence that some of Genesis was not written by Moses

Genesis 14:14 describes Abram’s rescue of Lot as follows: “When Abram heard that his kinsman had been taken captive, he led forth his trained men, born in his house, 318 of them, and went in pursuit as far as Dan.”

Dan was the name given to a city in the northern-most territory in Canaan, occupied by the descendents of Dan, the son of Jakob. Given the fact that the descendents of Dan did not occupy this area until after the Conquest of Canaan, this could be pointed to as evidence that Genesis (or at least this periscope within Genesis) was not written until some time after the conquest of Canaan. Seeing that Moses died before the Israelites entered Canaan, he could not have written this account.

There are at least two possible rebuttals. One would be to suggest that the identification of this area as “Dan” was due to a later updating of the text. On this view, Moses wrote this periscope and used the name of the city/region as it was called in his day. Later scribes, however, updated the text to reflect the modern names of the cities and regions Moses spoke of since modern readers would not be familiar with the ancient names.

The problem with this proposal is that there are several instances within this periscope in which both the ancient and modern name is provided:

In verses two and eight we read of a “king of Bela,” and then a parenthetical note is included which reads “that is, Zoar.” In Abraham’s day the territory was known as Bela, but by the time Genesis was written, the name had changed to Zoar.

In verse three the Valley of Siddim is identified as the SaltSea.

In verse seven En-mishpat is identified as Kadesh

In verse 17 the Valley of Shaveh is identified as the King’s Valley

Why would a later editor retain the archaic name in five other places in this periscope (choosing to add the then-modern name as a parenthetical statement), but in this one instance replace the archaic name with the then-modern name? Given the editor’s proclivity for using parenthetical statements to include the then-modern name, it is unlikely that a later editor simply replaced Moses’ use of an ancient name with the then-modern one.

Another possibility is that “Dan” refers to an ancient city that bore this name prior to the birth of Jakob’s son Dan, and prior to the Conquest. This is logically possible. After all, I know people who are named after cities such as “London,” and “Jerusalem.” Obviously these cities existed for centuries before my friends came along. The same could be true of Dan. Perhaps Jakob’s son Dan was named after an ancient city.

The problem with this proposal is two-fold. First, there is no other mention of a city named Dan prior to the city of Dan established in the Conquest, and thus we have no independent grounds for thinking a city named “Dan” existed prior to the establishment of Dan in the Conquest.

Secondly, Judges 18:27-29 makes it clear that prior to the Conquest, the city was called Laish (Joshua 19:47 identifies its prior name as Leshem). There is no reason to believe, then, that Moses was referring to a different city that also happened to be called Dan.

If neither rebuttal is successful, it seems to follow that Moses did not write the account in Genesis 14. This is not to say Moses is not the principal author of the book, but it is to acknowledge that the book in its present form was not entirely the work of Moses. Someone living after Moses may have used his source material to compose the work, or perhaps Moses composed the work, but a later editor added additional content, including this periscope in Genesis 14.

We will understand spiritual experience so well at some point at the level of the brain, at the level of changing attention in certain ways can change human experience, we’ll understand it in a way that makes a mockery of this kind of denominational religious talk about Jesus and Buddha and magic powers and that will break down in the same way it has broken down on medicine and that’s a process that we have to be honest about and let unfold.

It’s commonly imagined that atheists think there’s nothing beyond human life and human understanding. The truth is that atheists are free to admit that there’s much about the universe that we don’t understand. I mean it is obvious that we don’t understand the universe. But it is even more obvious that neither the Bible nor the Koran reflects our best understanding.

There could be life on other planets, complex life, technically accomplished civilizations, I mean just imagine a civilization a million years old as opposed to just a few thousand, atheists are free to imagine this possibility. They’re also free to admit that if such brilliant extraterrestrials exist, the Bible and the Koran are going to be even less impressive to them than they are to human atheists.

It’s often imagined that atheists are, in principle, closed to spiritual experience, but the truth is, there’s nothing that prevents an atheist from experiencing self transcending love or ecstasy or rapture or awe. In fact there’s nothing that prevents an atheist from going into a cave for a year or a decade and practicing meditation like a proper mystic. What atheists don’t tend to do is make unjustified and unjustifiable claims about the cosmos on the basis of those experiences.

Some might think that doubting Mosaic authorship of Genesis removes from our view of inspiration, but do we not still hold books like 1 & 2 Kings, 1 & 2 Chronicles, or Judges as inspired, even though we have only speculation regarding the identity of the authors?

Even if Genesis was originally a shorter work by Moses that underwent later editing, could we not suppose that there could be such a thing as “inspired supplementation”?

Your Doctrine of Inspiration refers only to the supernatural aspect of a mindset skewed to believe in the ghosts of hollywood and religion. Jesus never accepted the supernatural and railed against the clergy for misleading the masses. Why do you deny the simplicity that was in Jesus and substitute Him for the complicated issues of Church Dogma which is what the Doctrine of Inspiration from a supernatural force is all about.

My comments on the topic has everything to do with the topic. Just because you cannot understand the parallels I pose is the same reason the disciples asked Jesus to explain the parables to them because they couldn’t understand with their myopic minds.

I have to comment as I see the comments taking me; when I comment I am being “lead by the spirit”, the spirit in me Jason, not the spirit in you and certainly not the spirit in most of the other Christians who only come to this “Christian Site” to get pats on the back like CS described the site as a Christian Sit; in other words, if you are not a Christian get off the site.

I believe most of my comments are the only comments that offer engaging dialogue, you just have to read what I am saying and not what you expect me to say. If you cannot understand why my comment, that spoke of the Bible as well as the Koran and the fact that others of different viewpoints are not impressed that Genesis in particular and the Bible in general that were written by different contributors, what is off topic about that? I gave you an analogy (parable) but you missed the points I was making altogether wanting, I suspect, to appease some other visitors to your site by siding with them.

Of course you can justify anything in religion. That’s what religion is all about justifying everything. It’s like the English language, a living language that surrenders itself to the changes that occur.

I see no relationship at all to this post. We are talking about the authorship of Deuteronomy. What you provided is an unrelated rant.

I am supportive of people expressing disagreement on this blog, but I want it to be on-point and respectful. I do not want this blog turned into a place for long-winded rants that do not address the topic of the post, and/or malign other people. When people disagree with either me or another commenter, I expect for them to address the arguments presented rather than going off on tangents or changing the topic. It should be point and counter-point dialogue.

All future comments that do not meet this criteria, will be deleted. I am not singling you out. This applies to every commenter on this blog.

You are right. But have you missed the forest for the tree? Which book is under discussion was ancillary to the point of my comment. It seems a bit odd that you would ignore everything else I said, and instead focus on that.

The paper raises some valid concerns. I agree with a number of things the author had to say. I agree that too many scholars today (including those who believe the text is inspired by God) act as though the Bible is a purely human book that evolved over time. Too often, scholars claim there was editing done when there is no compelling evidence for it. I am definitely not one who subscribes to wide-spread, major editing of the text. Yet, clearly there is some editing in some place. This could be as “minor” as penning endings to books like Deuteronomy and the Gospel of John (in which case the original inspiration is not altered).

But other claims of the author, such that any updating of the grammar or vocabulary to make it understandable to then-modern readers, are overblown in my estimation.

I’ll try to remember to send you the PDF containing my off-the-cuff comments.